Room exists for diplomatic effort in Iran nuclear issue: Chinese FM

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Room for diplomatic efforts still exists in resolving the Iran nuclear issue, a Chinese diplomat said Thursday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu made the remarks in response to a question on last week's nuclear talks and China's stance over sanctions against Iran.

Diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United States made no decisions in their talks on the Iranian nuclear issue in a closed-door meeting in New York.

After the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister

Sergei Ryabkov said the meeting was "inconclusive in a sense that we didn't make any decisions right away," but added that most of the discussions focused on the "second track," meaning sanctions.

Stressing China's support for resolving the issue through a double-track strategy, Ma said China had always regarded diplomacy and negotiations as the best solutions.

"There still exists room for concerned parties to make diplomatic efforts," Ma said.

The priority was to proceed from an overall and long-term perspective, step up diplomatic efforts and adopt more flexible and pragmatic policies to make progress on dialogue and negotiations, Ma said.

"I believe this is the right path," said he.

Western nations have accused Iran of covertly building nuclear weapons, but Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is intended to generate electricity for its people.